TUNISIA

I've visited this country only once, during the summer 2012. My interest was first of all related to the Islamic past, including Ibn Khaldun, the Qarawiyyin, etc. In the second place, I was interested in the Tunisian francophone literature, that I considered nonetheless as lesser, if compared to the Moroccan or Algerian. This is why my concern in Tunisia became focused on just one figure: Abdelwahab Meddeb as a writer and as an intellectual. During my trip, I visited the obvious places such as Tunis, with its colonial, modernist avenue Ibn Khaldun, and the medinah containing the mosque of al-Zaytuna, as well as Kairouan. As I said, the Islamic monuments were at the center of my interest. Nonetheless, at that time, a certain tension was in the air for anything that concerned religion. In many places I didn't dare more than a glimpse, hardly daring to breath and certainly not thinking about taking pictures. On the other hand, I still had several very friendly encounters with the local religious-intellectual class, as well as with the local people, greatly surprised to see me reading in the bilingual edition of the epistle on Mālikī rite by Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani. I was more at ease, but at the same time much more isolated from local life, in all places related to the Antiquity and I visited all the obvious attractions such as Carthage, the amphitheater of al-Jam, etc. But that wasn't the main aim of my trip. Shortly speaking, Tunisia is a country that remains on my agenda for a deeper approach in quieter times.